I've replaced my desktop setup with mobile and loving it

[svtcontour]

So I used to have a silent PC running JRiver (actually I do still have it but its off) and it would feed a couple full sized or non mobile dacs. One was a Soncoz SGD1 and the other was an old DAT player I'd use as a DAC (sounded a tad warmer). I was feeding both out of a USB to SPDIF adapter that had an ASIO driver for windows.

Recently I was messing around with a better dongle DAC on my phone and I was kind of blown away (A Hidizs S8 Pro) and had an idea of using it as my main DAC in my home setup and see how it goes. I grabbed my old Samsung phone, installed Bubble UPNP so I could stream to it from my own phone and tablet (via Bubble UPNP as well - sources are local NAS and Qobuz).

Well, what can I say. I miss nothing out vs the full size DACs as far as fidelity, at least to my 54 year old ears LOL. As a result, I was able to move the small rack i had and I just put the sh%t on the floor and it looks fine and the corner that had the audio stuff feels a little more open.

I also ordered for messing around with, the Moon Drop Dawn Pro and it also sounds just as good. Maybe I'm crazy but I am totally good keeping things this way. If I still feel I'm missing nothing in a few months, I might sell my desktop DACs to be honest LOL.

 

[RayDunzl]

What speakers are those?

 

[svtcontour]

What speakers are those?

They are DIY open baffle that I did late 2018. Version 2.0 of my previous open baffle I built in 2013. This time bigger and better

 

[Tom C]

I did something very much like this in my living room. Not sure exactly what you have going there, but I used a desk top DAC with volume control directly into a tube power amp. With XLR from the DAC to the tube amp, one of the tube stages on the power amp was bypassed, so probably best possible performance that could be gotten from it. I was pretty happy with it.
A phone is the most versatile streamer. You can stream about anything there is to stream with it. Playing files from a hard drive or NAS can be harder, at least in iOS land, which is what my phone is. I remember Android being better, in this regard. PiCorePlayer on Raspberry Pi controlled wirelessly by phone or tablet worked better for me, instead of a phone hardwired to the DAC. But it’s not for everyone.

 

[storing]

I've tried similar things and while I dig the minimalism, I just cannot get used to small touch screens for anything more than just putting on an album or pre-made playlist.

I often listen to one song after the other without deciding which ones in advance and I still have to find an app in which I can do that as conveniently as using a mouse and keyboard to pick tracks from my collection, dragging tracks around in a playlist, navigating within tracks etc in applications like foobar2000 (which itself could be usable on my laptop/tablet hybrid with touch only I guess, with the right skin).

Any tips?

 

[svtcontour]

I've tried similar things and while I dig the minimalism, I just cannot get used to small touch screens for anything more than just putting on an album or pre-made playlist.

I often listen to one song after the other without deciding which ones in advance and I still have to find an app in which I can do that as conveniently as using a mouse and keyboard to pick tracks from my collection, dragging tracks around in a playlist, navigating within tracks etc in applications like foobar2000 (which itself could be usable on my laptop/tablet hybrid with touch only I guess, with the right skin).

Any tips?

I did something very much like this in my living room. Not sure exactly what you have going there, but I used a desk top DAC with volume control directly into a tube power amp. With XLR from the DAC to the tube amp, one of the tube stages on the power amp was bypassed, so probably best possible performance that could be gotten from it. I was pretty happy with it.
A phone is the most versatile streamer. You can stream about anything there is to stream with it. Playing files from a hard drive or NAS can be harder, at least in iOS land, which is what my phone is. I remember Android being better, in this regard. PiCorePlayer on Raspberry Pi controlled wirelessly by phone or tablet worked better for me, instead of a phone hardwired to the DAC. But it’s not for everyone.

Ok so the way I've got it set up on mine is via two phones. I'm using an old phone that I'm not using anymore (Samsung S20) with bubbleUPNP installed and configured as a DLNA server so it can receive music. Its plugged in all the time to the charger and plugged into the DAC which plugs into the stereo.

Then I have my main android phone also with BubbleUPNP installed. On that phone I have physical music on an SD card as well as configured BubbleUPNP to see the music on my NAS and also hooked into Qobuz. I then set the output to a remote "renderer" which is the other phone. They have to both be on the same WiFi network.

When I play music from my main phone then from any of those sources, instead of playing back locally, it plays back on the remote phone which is plugged into the DAC. All functions such as skip tracks, volume.etc work of course. One gotcha is that you need the paid version of BubbleUPNP to do the server setup to receive music.

 

[storing]

@svtcontour I understand how the principle works, I have done it myself. My issue is operating the thing via a small UI on a phone screen. I.e. my issue is: screenshots of BubbleUPNPlook like exactly what I meant with "I just cannot get used to small touch screens for anything more than just putting on an album or pre-made playlist". Maybe it's better when put on a tablet, but it seems to miss things like split view with all possible tracks on one side and playlists on the right, and so on.

 

[svtcontour]

@svtcontour I understand how the principle works, I have done it myself. My issue is operating the thing via a small UI on a phone screen. I.e. my issue is: screenshots of BubbleUPNPlook like exactly what I meant with "I just cannot get used to small touch screens for anything more than just putting on an album or pre-made playlist". Maybe it's better when put on a tablet, but it seems to miss things like split view with all possible tracks on one side and playlists on the right, and so on.

Ah ok I thought you were just using the one device rather than using one to stream to the other. Definitely a tablet used for control is nicer than using a phone, but honestly I find the Bubble UPNP interface pretty good.